Matthew MurrayNvidia GeForce GTX 580Nvidia's new top-tier video card, the GeForce GTX 580, is the first to take full advantage of the Fermi architecture's capabilities&mdash;and it was well worth waiting for.

Expensive. Won't fit in smaller cases. Requires two expansion slots, hefty power supply. New features make it difficult to discern actual power usage or temperature characteristics in certain apps.

Bottom Line

Nvidia's new top-tier video card, the GeForce GTX 580, is the first to take full advantage of the Fermi architecture's capabilities—and it was well worth waiting for.

Ever since Nvidia released its first consumer-level Fermi video card, the GeForce GTX 480, back in March, consumers have been wondering when we'd see a full-out version of its GF100 GPU. With Nvidia's release of its new GeForce GTX 580 ($499.99 list), that time has finally arrivedand it's worth the wait. This card isn't just the fastest single-GPU video card on the market, it also surpasses the previous overall champ in many tests. That's not to say this card is cheap, or that it doesn't still have potential to nudge up the numbers on your power bill, butat the moment, anywaythe GTX 580 represents the high-end gaming standard.

This won't come as a surprise if you've been following the video card wars over the last year or so. AMD was first out of the gate with its 5000-series cards, which supported DirectX 11 (DX11), and had filled out most of its lineup before Nvidia fired its first return shot with the GTX 480. The GTX 480 immediately became the market leader as the speediest single-GPU card, but its high price and the fact that its performance didn't significantly outstrip AMD's top new offerings dampened its reception a bit. The slightly lower-capability GTX 470 and GTX 465 did little to bolster Nvidia's reputation, but the $200-range GTX 460 was good enough to restore some faith in the Fermi plan. But Nvidia still hadn't released what it originally promised: a card with a complete Fermi GPU (now called the GF110), not the chopped-down one the GTX 480 sported.

Now the company has. The GTX 580 boasts a full complement of 16 Streaming Multiprocessors (SMs), which means 512 CUDA cores, 16 polymorph engines, four raster units, 64 texture units, and 48 ROPs. (The GTX 480 had only 15 SMs, meaning it had less of everything else as well.) A graphics clock of 772 MHz, a processor clock of 1,544 MHz, and 1.5GB of GDDR5 memory (running on a 384-bit interface) round out its specs. The PCI Express x16 card is wide enough to consume two expansion slots, and like other cards of this size requires two direct connections from your 600-watt–minimum power supply: one six-pin and one eight-pin. Like Nvidia's other top gaming cards, you can connect up to three total in Scalable Link Interface (SLI) configurations, and offers three video outputs in the form of two dual-link DVI ports and one mini HDMI jack. The card is 10.5 inches in lengthabout an inch shorter than AMD's top model, the ATI Radeon HD 5970, but long enough that it won't automatically fit every case. As with all of the other cards in Nvidia's catalog, the GTX 580 supports the 3D Vision stereoscopic 3D technology and PhysX for improved in-game physics handling.

According to an Nvidia rep, the company implemented a number of design changes to make the card run cooler and quieter than the GTX 480, which was notorious for being "fast, hot, and loud." First, the interior edge of the card has been beveled to allow for better airflow, particularly when using multiple cards; a straight edge constricted it, especially in cases where the card was very close to the drive well. Nvidia has also revamped the card's cooling system to reduce noise levels, which with the GTX 480 were highly noticeable: It now pairs the fan with a custom-designed vapor chamber and adaptive GPU fan control that reduce the speed at which the fan has to move to keep the card within safe operating limits.

Similar modifications have been made to the card's power usage. The GTX 580's TDP is 244 wattssix watts shy of the GTX 480's. Nvidia achieved the change through a couple of significant changes. It revamped its use of transistors, using those designed for lower leakage on processing paths that were less timing sensitive, and higher-speed transistors on paths where speed mattered more. Nvidia also implemented a new hardware monitor that keeps the card's power usage in check under stressful application loads: It monitors current and voltage on each 12-volt rail in real time, and dynamically adjusts performance to keep the power usage under control in apps that really throttle the card.

One such app is Furmark, a highly intensive rendering benchmark and stability test. Our test system loaded with the GTX 580 reported using only 136 watts when idling and a maximum of 286 watts under full load, and reaching a top operating temperature of 69 degrees Celsius. The GTX 480 also needed 136 watts when idle, but used 448 watts under full load and ran at a blistering maximum temperature of 95 degrees—and the borderline-deafening fan noise to match. Because of the new hardware monitoring, it's difficult to know how much you can trust these numbers, but the technology should help defuse some of the criticisms Nvidia received about the GTX 480.

Coupled with the card's overall performance gains, however, the power usage now seems even more reasonable. Though the GTX 480 was pushing it for a single-GPU card, the dual-GPU Radeon HD 5970 had an even higher TDP (294 watts), and offered considerably better performance. No longer. On our 19 high-level gaming tests, the 5970 came out ahead on only four: 3DMark Vantage at the Extreme preset (14,212 versus 12,112); the Aliens vs. Predator benchmark at both 1,920 by 1,200 and 2,560 by 1,600 (60.4 fps and 29.7 fps respectively, as opposed to 50.8 fps and 27.2 fps); and in the DX10 version of our 1,920-by-1,200 Heaven Benchmark 2.1 test (73.3 fps versus 60.7 fps). Everything else the GTX 580 took in a walk, most notably on tessellation-heavy DX11 tests like H.A.W.X. 2 (122 fps and 89 fps at 2,560 by 1,600 with 4x and 8x anti-aliasing respectively, compared to 70 fps and 60 fps) and Heaven (with all the settings maxed, the GTX 580 managed 21.3 fps at 2,560the 5970 could handle only 1.3 fps). According to Nvidia, the tessellation improvements come as a result of improved Z-culling, which spends less time rendering polygons you can't see.

Nvidia has really come a long way in a year. At this point in 2009, most everyone had all but ceded the future of gaming graphics to AMDand not without reason. But if the GeForce GTX 580 is ultimately just fulfilling an old promise, it also shows that Nvidia hasn't been wasting its time and has been both willing and able to learn from its earlier mistakes. With a card that handles contemporary titles and technology better, Nvidia is well prepared to tackle AMD's current generation of cards, the 6000 series, which lowered its defenses on the high end when it launched in the midrange area a few weeks ago. With a recent drop in price to about $470-$599 (depending on the manufacturer), the 5970 is still an outstanding card—but it's no longer the undisputed champion, at least in every title. The balance of power could easily shift again over the next few months as AMD zips along its own roadmap and releases cards in the 6000 series' more robust Cayman (performance) and Antilles (dual-GPU) lines, and we wouldn't be surprised if those met or even surpassed the challenge Nvidia has issued. But for now, if you're looking for the fastest single-GPU video card at the best possible price, the GTX 580 is it.

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About the Author

Matthew Murray got his humble start leading a technology-sensitive life in elementary school, where he struggled to satisfy his ravenous hunger for computers, computer games, and writing book reports in Integer BASIC. He earned his B.A. in Dramatic Writing at Western Washington University, where he also minored in Web design and German. He has been... See Full Bio

Nvidia GeForce GTX 580

Nvidia GeForce GTX 580

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